"Greg and Jim"

The Work of Gregory Clark and Jimmie Frise

Tag: 1946 Page 1 of 5

Thar She Blows!

by

On November 22, 2025

In Greg-Jim Story

The whole engine seemed to explode, and out from the radiator core streams and jets of barn red were spurting with violent force.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 23, 1946.

“Waste not,” proverbed Jimmie Frise, “want not.

“But, Jim,” I protested, “you say that anti-freeze is two years old?”

“It’s older than that,” admitted Jim. “It was two years ago I drained it out of my rad.”

“Well, then,” I figured, “why didn’t you use it last winter instead of now? Why have you left it all this time in your cellar?”

“Well, you remember last fall,” explained Jim. “Last fall, we figured the war was over. Everything was about to become plentiful again. Everything would soon be back to normal. New cars. New clothes. New furniture. New houses, New anti-freeze…”

“Anti-freeze was as hard to get last fall,” I pointed out, “as it is now1.”

“Yeah,” said Jim, “but I got busy early. I got a friend of mine in a garage to snaggle me three gallons of anti-freeze. Which he did. And I used it all last winter. And when spring came, last spring, why, I said to myself – we don’t have to save old anti-freeze now. The war’s over. Everything will soon be back to normal. New cars. New clothes. New furniture. New houses…”

“And new anti-freeze,” I rounded off bitterly. “So you just drained last year’s anti-freeze down the sewer.2“

“Yes, sir,” said Jim. “Right down that drain, right there.”

And he pointed to the small drain-hole in his side drive. We were standing beside Jim’s car while it drained out the rusty water of the past summer’s driving. And in three large jars, one-gallon jars, stood the two-year- old anti-freeze which Jim had just brought up from his cellar.

The jars were brown glass. And the liquid within seemed clear and bright.

“It’s a very curious thing to me, Jim,” I said, crouching down to study the jars,” that there appears to be no sediment at all in this stuff. Wasn’t it rusty when you put it in here two years ago?”

“It was red,” agreed Jim, “and it thick with rust. But chemistry is a funny thing. Chemicals. undergo strange changes. That stuff has stood two whole years in the cellar. All the rust and sediment has settled to the bottom. It has, hardened there. It has congealed. It has, you might say, consumed itself by some mysterious chemical process.

I lifted one of the jars and examined the bottom.

“Careful there,” cried Jim. “Don’t shake it all up. I’ll decant it into the rad. And I don’t want it all stirred up.”

“There is,” I admitted grudgingly,” a small sort of sediment on the bottom…”

“That’ll be it,” said Jim. “That’ll be the rust. All that’s left of it. After two years of absolute stillness down in the dark cellar. Anyway, what is rust in anti-freeze? Just coloring. Nothing more. What seems to be an actual ingredient of the anti-freeze turns out to be nothing more than a fine coloring matter – rust – which, if left alone, settles to the bottom. And all you’ve got is just a little trace of sediment.”

I carefully lifted another jug and studied the traces of sediment on the bottom.

“It’s astonishing,” I confessed. “But Jim, won’t this anti-freeze be diluted?”

“How?” demanded Jim. “What would dilute it?”

“Well, water for one thing,” I suggested. “Didn’t you add a little water from time to time to this anti-freeze, since that winter two years ago?”

Jim reflected, as he listened to the gurgle of the little tap under his rad while the rusty water dribbled away.

“Yes,” he said, “I believe I do, as a matter of fact, add a little water from time to time, during the winter…”

“Very well then,” I cried, “isn’t this old stuff diluted? Maybe it’s all water?”

“Not at all,” replied Jim easily. “Anti-freeze doesn’t evaporate. So when I add a little water, it’s the water that evaporates, not the anti-freeze. See?”

Chemical Sense

“Then why did you have to add a little water in the first place,” I triumphed, “if the anti-freeze didn’t evaporate?”

“Well, I suppose,” said Jim, “some of it leaked away. After all, this is a pretty old customer of a car. There are bound to be little cracks and leaks in the radiator core.”

“May I smell this stuff, just to see?” I suggested, removing the top from the gallon jar nearest.

It smelled curious and pungent. It had a sharp, breath-taking odor. It certainly wasn’t diluted.

As I drew back smartly, Jim chuckled. “Not much dilution there,” he smiled. “No, Greg. I admit I’m very foolish in many respects. I leave this job of putting in the anti-freeze until the last minute…”

“The last minute!” I protested. My dear man, your rad has frozen three times this week!”

“I admit,” went on Jimmie, “that I’m a procrastinator. But I’ll say this for myself. I know chemicals. I know a few simple, common-sense facts about the things I’ve got to work with, such as cars. And I know anti-freeze will keep from year to year. And I think it was rather cute of me to put those three gallons away, two years ago.”

“I hope it works,” I muttered.

“You mean,” chuckled Jim, “you hope it doesn’t work. You’re stiff with jealousy because you can’t get any anti-freeze. Your car is laid up. And it burns you up to see me produce three gallons from my cellar that I have thriftily preserved all these years.”

“It isn’t like you, Jim,” I replied earnestly. “You’re NOT thrifty. You’ve never been thrifty all the years I’ve known you. It makes me sort of nervous and anxious to see you pop up with three gallons of anti-freeze out of your cellar. It doesn’t seem normal. It doesn’t seem right, somehow…”

“Heh, heh heh,” said Jim comfortably, as he bent down under and turned off the little radiator tap which had ceased dribbling.

“Might I suggest one thing, Jim.” I ventured, as he straightened up. “You said there: might have been little cracks and leaks in the rad. How about putting in some of those patent leak fixers they sell at the service stations? Before you risk putting all this good anti-freeze in?”

“I’ve already done that,” said Jim, setting a funnel in the radiator cap opening. “All last winter and all the past summer, I’ve dumped can after can of that radiator cement in. Five or six different kinds. Half a dozen different guaranteed brands. I bet there isn’t a leak in that whole core. And besides, any leaks that might try to break out are rusted up so tight, not even the patent leak fixers could get at it. Look under there.”

“That Stuff Eats”

And under the car I could see a pool of thick red rust where Jim had drained out the water. It was sludge. It was a regular pile of liquid rust.

“Okay,” cried Jim, “you hold the funnel. I’ll decant.”

By decanting, Jim meant tilting the gallon jug so gently that none of the little sediment in the bottom of the jar was stirred up.

As the first gurgle of anti-freeze hit the radiator pipe, there was a sharp hiss and a cloud of vapor billowed out that almost choked us.

“I should have waited,” coughed Jim “until it cooled off…”

The engine had been boiling when Jim decided to drain it.

“But,” he continued, decanting, “I’ll soon cool her out.”

Quite a lot of hissing went on and more choking fumes billowed out, which I dodged by crouching down so as to let the breeze waft them away.

As Jim poured, some of the anti-freeze gurgled and splashed a little on to my coat sleeve. And I noticed the cloth turned white immediately.

“Hey,” I said, “pour carefully! That stuff eats.”

When Jim had successfully decanted the first gallon jug. I examined my coat sleeve. Two or three small drops had fallen on the cloth and the cloth was marked almost pure white. I rubbed. The white became whiter. It was as if it were bleached.

“Now, be careful,” I said, as I held the funnel for the second gallon jug.

This jug poured much smoother than the first. We had lost our sense of smell by this time, of course, and it seemed to me the second jug did not exude such overpowering fumes as the first. Besides, it was a slightly less clear color. It was a sort of pale yellow.

“Jim,” I pointed out, “this jug is different. It seems thicker. And it’s not so gin clear.”

“Maybe it was the last one out,” explained Jim; sniffing. “It would be thicker…”

 So he poured and poured and the slick and slimy anti-freeze gurgled and guggled down into the radiator pipe. It seemed to soothe the weary gullet of the rad. All the hissing and sizzling stopped. It was like balm.

Jim poured the last of the jug and I let the funnel slowly empty. When I shifted it, I got a little of the liquid on my hand.

“It’s quite sticky,” I remarked.

“It would be,” agreed Jim authoritatively.

And he carefully hoisted the third and last jug.

It was another stinger. It poured like water. It emitted choking fumes. And I was glad when Jim carefully tipped, the last drop of it into the funnel.

“There,” sighed Jim. dusting his hands. “Now we’re set for another winter.”

And he carried the empty jugs back down cellar and stowed them in the special place he had left them two long-years before where, in the event that the world still refuses to get back on the rails, he intends to re-store his anti-freeze for another winter yet to come.

We washed our hands in the kitchen and came out and boarded the car. Jim started the engine, and it purred.

“Listen to that,” applauded Jim. “Now, why doesn’t everybody use a little common sense, a little forethought? Think of all the people, all over this country, who are fussing and fuming over a little anti-freeze for their cars…?”

“I never smelled anti-freeze, like that,” I submitted as we backed out to the street.

“Oho, yes, you have!” laughed Jim. “Every year. But you forget. Each year you have to get customed to the smell of your anti-freeze.”

But at the end of the first block, even Jim was a little anxious. The car seemed filled with those queer pungent choking fumes we had noticed while pouring the anti-freeze. I opened my window wide. Jim opened his.

As we came to a halt at the first stop light five blocks from home, at the shopping section, I could hear a curious familiar humming and hissing sound.

“Jim,” I cried, “she’s boiling again!”

“Nonsense,” laughed Jim.

He shifted gears and crossed with the green light. Whereupon something went fffzzzzz! and a squirt of what appeared to be barn red paint looped into the air in front of the car, curved back and splashed all over the windshield.

Jim jammed on the brakes and leaped out. He lifted the hood and as he did so, the whole engine seemed to explode, the radiator cap blew off and out from numerous points in the radiator core, streams and jets of barn red were spurting, with violent force.

The Home Touch!

I reached and turned off the ignition. And we stood there, while a crowd gathered the engine hissed, rumbled, spouted trembled as with an intense internal convulsion it reminded me of Mount Vesuvius in eruption.

By the time it had quieted down, Jim got a motorist to give us a push down to the next corner service station.

and

and

When we drew up and the lad at the pump lifted the hood again we were covered with barn red half-way back to the tonneau3.

“Boy,” breathed the garage lad admiringly, “you certainly got a beauty, eh?”

“I can’t understand it,” Jim declared. “I just finished putting my anti-freeze in. Not 10 minutes ago I drained it. I put in three gallons of anti-freeze, and look at her!”

The garage lad leaned in and smelled. He sniffed down the radiator pipe. He sniffed all around the front of the radiator core.

“What kind of anti-freeze do you use?” he asked, very puzzled.

“Why, the regular stuff,” said Jim, naming a well-known brand.

“And what else?” inquired, the lad, rubbing his finger around some of the larger holes in the rad.

He examined his finger curiously.

“Why,” he said, “it’s all granulated, sort of.” He cautiously tasted it.

“Why,” he said, “what are you doing with maple sugar in your rad?”

“Maple…” gasped Jimmie, “maple sugar!”

He strode into the service station. I strode after.

He dialled his home telephone number.

“Can you tell me,” he inquired coolly and distantly, “what was in those three jugs, gallon jugs of mine down under the cellar stairs?”

He got an answer.

He croaked good-by and hung up.

“What was it?” I asked.

“Two gallons of javel water4,” coughed Jim huskily, “and one gallon of maple syrup.”

Editor’s Notes:

  1. According to a October 26, 1946 news story in the Toronto Star, there was a shortage of anti-freeze in 1945 due to the availability of tins. The shortage in 1946 was due to anti-freeze produced in the United States. Some produced in the U.S. was from ethelyne glycol which had price controls from the war lifted which resulted in a higher price that could be received there. However the article indicated that anti-freeze made from alcohol should be expected to make up the difference. ↩︎
  2. This would be before there were laws against that. ↩︎
  3. I think this is just another old-timey saying by Greg, meaning the back of the car. A tonneau referred to the rounded back seat in an old open top car. ↩︎
  4. Javel water is liquid bleach. The first commercial bleach, was named Eau de Javel (“Javel water”) after the borough of Javel, near Paris, where it was produced. ↩︎

Pinch Hitters

by

On September 20, 2025

In Greg-Jim Story

It was not Mrs. Wilshie’s pie that had won. It was Mrs. Hogan’s. A moment later Jim yelled, “Look out!”

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, September 21, 1946.

“We’re stupid!” grated Jimmie Frise.

“Worse,” I agreed.

“We’re fools,” asserted Jim violently, “to be going on this crazy enterprise.”

“We should have our heads read.” I subscribed. “But who got us into it?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t,” cried Jimmie indignantly, almost steering the car into the ditch so hotly did he turn on me.

“You didn’t?” I sneered. “Well, who got the letter inviting us?”

“I admit the letter was addressed to me,” admitted Jim angrily. “But it wasn’t me they wanted. It was you.”

“Me?” I scoffed. “What do I know about judging beauty contests?”

“You know more than I do,” accused Jim. “A dapper little guy you? Of course it was you they wanted to judge their beauty contest.”

“Pardon me,” I excused. “The well-known artist and illustrator, James Llewellyn Frise. That’s who they wanted to judge their beauty contest. And that’s who they addressed their letter to.”

“But they said distinctly,” cried Jim, “that I was to bring you. They said that was paramount.”

“Paramount, eh?” I mused, not displeased.

“So you can’t put the blame on me,” pursued Jim firmly. “This is a joint foolish enterprise.”

“Is it ever!” I sighed. “A beauty contest! And a beauty contest at a small local farm fair. I wouldn’t mind a beauty contest in a big city. There is something anonymous about a big city. You can judge the prettiest of 50 or 100 girls and offend nobody. It’s cold and abstract and anonymous. But at a small country fair…”

“There will probably be 10 entries,” moaned Jim, slackening the car’s speed so as to enjoy his anguish better. “Ten young farm or village girls. All of them shy and embarrassed. All of them bitterly jealous…”

“And their parents!” I reminded. “And their relatives! Each girl will be backed by her local clan. Jim, we’ll be lucky to get out alive.”

Jim drove a moment, still slackening speed.

“I’ll tell you,” he cried eagerly. “Let’s turn back. And I’ll telephone out to them that you have been taken down with an attack of trichonitis!1“

“Then they’ll insist that you go alone,” I pointed out.

“Hmmmm,” said Jim hopelessly. “We couldn’t both have trichonitis.”

“No, let’s go through with it,” I pressed, “now that we’ve come this far. But let it be a lesson to us.”

“I kind of think,” said Jim slyly, “that you WANT to judge this beauty contest.”

“I do NOT,” I asserted hotly. “My whole nature rebels at the thought of having to judge between the charms of a number of innocent young girls. I’m too kind-hearted. I doubt if I’ll be able to distinguish between them. I’m the kind of guy to whom ALL girls look equally lovely.”

“Oh yeah?” smiled Jimmie.

“It’s a fact,” I assured. “After a man passes 40, he can’t distinguish between one girl and another. They all look the same.”

“Pawff.” scoffed Jim.

A New Slant on Beauty

“You’re an artist,” I explained. “To you, beauty is evident. An artist must have an eye for beauty. But me? I’m just an ordinary guy who thinks with his heart, not with his eye. Maybe when I was a young fellow I could distinguish between the relative beauty of one girl and another. But as the years go by you lose that power. Or maybe you gain another power. Maybe you can discern in other and deeper forms.”

“For example?” demanded Jim, picking up speed.

“Well, for example, when you’re young,” I explained, “you see beauty in terms of lovely features, beautiful hair, a nice figure. You overlook entirely the ugly features to be detected in the selfish and hard eye. You miss entirely the ugliness of the way she carries herself, proudly, consciously, arrogantly. As you grow older, you look right past the pretty features. the radiant hair, the attractive figure. These superficial things do not deflect your gaze. You look at those things which are true beauty.”

“What is true beauty?” inquired Jim.

“A combination,” I enunciated. “of outward and inward things. Now that I’m middle-aged. I can see, every few weeks, some woman I knew as a girl. She was ravishingly beautiful, then, in feature and form. But she has withered from within. Now she is revealed as a hard, selfish, greedy, oppressive woman. She doesn’t want to carry her share of the load of life. She wants, at 40 or 50. to be pampered as she was when a young girl, because of her superficial beauty.

“Maybe you got something there,” ruminated Jim. “I know cases like that.

“Then I know the opposite case,” I went on. “I see women whom I knew as small, insignificant, little mousie-colored girls. Girls nobody ever looked at. The kind of girls nobody took to dances or parties. I see them now on the street; I pass them, and we exchange shy looks of remembrance. And my heart stands still. For they have turned into women of great and real beauty. They are middle-aged. But they are beautiful. Beautiful in style, in poise, in character. They have beautiful children…”

“Probably mousie-colored little girls…” smiled Jim.

“Exactly,” I agreed. “And the boys are passing them by in favor of the snappy, snazzy girls with the flaunting airs.”

“Which is as it should be,” cut in Jim. “Because the boys who are attracted to the flashy type will be the kind of men, some day, who don’t deserve the kind of women the little mousie girls will develop into.”

“And no good guy,” I rounded off, “deserves to be saddled with one of those… those…”

“I get you,” Jim agreed hastily.

“Okay, then,” said Jim more cheerly. “I can go at this beauty contest with a little more enthusiasm now. We judge the girls on their outward seeming only. We’ll act our age. We’ll be middle-aged. We’ll be discerning. We’ll introduce something new into the art and science of beauty-contest judging. We’ll judge these girls on what we, as experienced middle-aged men, can foresee will TURN OUT TO BE the most beautiful woman…”

“Ah,” I agreed contentedly.

Measles to the Rescue

“Well,” sighed Jim, happily. “We’re not fools after all. I’m glad we worked that out.”

“By the way,” I submitted. “We won’t be the sole judges. There are always three judges to a beauty contest.”

“Yes, you’re right,” said Jim. “In the letter it said that Miss McCann, the school teacher, would be the other judge with us.”

“School teacher?” I said guardedly.

“Miss McCann,” explained Jim. “She’s been the schoolma’am down there for nearly 40 years.”

“Aaaaahhh,” I consented.

So we drove more cheerfully on our way. And as we drove in silence, we went back in our recollections to the girls we had known in school, and all the beauties we had scanned afar off in our young manhood, as we speculated on the mystery of how a man selects a maid. And we remembered the raving beauties and wondered where they were now. And how they had turned out, in the rough and tumble washing-machine of life. And we recollected, too, many a little gal with freckles and a funny nose and Minnie Mouse legs, who had scampered across our youthful (and thoughtful) visions. And we speculated on what great and lovely women they might have become, and in what strange and far part of the earth they might have fared to. Ah, it’s a nice thing to hold an old boys’ and girls’ reunion in your imagination.

So we came at last to the little town – one of Jim’s many birthplaces, nearly – which was holding its fall fair so early in September. The first fair they’ve held for nearly six years now. And the feature of it was to be a beauty contest judged by those eminent authorities, Frise and Clark.

We drove to the fairgrounds, where the reeve was sitting on the five-barred gate, watching for us.

“Hi, Jim!” he hailed. He was an old schoolmate of Jim’s.

But as he shook hands with us, his face fell.

“Boys,” he said anxiously. “We’re all in a terrible fix. We don’t know how to break it to you. And we don’t know how you’ll react to it.”

“What is it?” I asked suspiciously.

“The beauty contest is off,” said the reeve. “The contest is off because three of the seven entries have got the measles. There’s epidemic of measles. And when three of the girls caught them, the parents of the others wouldn’t let them enter because they were afraid they’d catch the measles too.”

Jim and I stood irresolute.

“Bill,” said Jim to the reeve, “you don’t know how relieved we are. We pretended we were going to enjoy the job. We figured out a new basis of judging beauty. But deep in our hearts…”

“Deep in our hearts,” I agreed, “we knew darn well that the girl who would win would be the flashiest one. The one who would be a thorn in the flesh all the days of her life.”

“What’s this, what’s this?” inquired Bill, the reeve

“Well, at this rate,” ignored Jimmie, “we’ll just be visitors today, Bill. We’ll just enjoy the fair…”

“Oho, no you won’t!” bellowed Bill. “We’ve got two distinguished citizens and we’re going to make them judge.”

“Judge what?” demanded Jim.

“Hogs?” suggested the reeve. “How about judging the hogs?”

“Pardon me,” I put in, “but I know less about hogs than I do about… uh…”

“Jim,” accused the reeve, “you know as much about hogs as any man in this county.”

“I’ve kinda got out of touch,” excused Jim. “It’s 20, 30 years since I paid any attention to hogs, Bill. The fashions may have changed. Maybe…”

“Okay, then,” cried the reeve, agreeably. “How about judging the pies and cakes… the baking?”

“Pickles!” I suggested eagerly.

“Sure, the pickles,” cried the reeve. “Look. You gentlemen have come a long ways. We’re not going to waste your talents. We’ll set you up then as judges of the pies, cakes… and pickles.”

“Pickles,” I assured. “That’s my field.”

And the reeve conducted us ceremoniously through the gate and led us through the gathering throng, introducing us lavishly to people right and left until we reached the big marquee tent.

At the tent door, he introduced us to Miss McCann, the school teacher who was to have been our fellow judge in the beauty contest. Miss McCann was deeply disappointed.

“Of course,” she told us confidentially, “we had the winner all picked out. It was a foregone conclusion.”

“Who was the winner?” I inquired.

“Oh, Bill’s daughter,” explained Miss McCann. “The reeve’s daughter. But when she caught the measles, why Bill arranged to have the contest called off. Naturally.”

We were shoved inside the marquee.

It was beautiful. You never saw or smelled such an array of lovely provender. The pies, cakes, loaves, biscuits and buns were tastefully presented on tables. The pickles had a table all to themselves. And despite Jim’s objection that pickles would dull our sense of taste for the cakes and pies, I pointed out that eating pickles AFTER pie was highly improper. We were introduced to the third judge in the baking entries, a Mr. Booth.

The Connoisseurs!

“I’ll just leave the pickles to you, Mr. Clark,” said Mr. Booth. “I’ll second your choice, no matter what it is. I can’t go pickles.”

“Off with the bottle tops!” I commanded heartily.

And the crowd drew back to a respectful distance while Jim and I and Mr. Booth approached the pickle table.

“You’ll find.” said Mr. Booth, quietly into my ear, “that the Wilshie pickles will win. They always do.”

And he tapped one of the bottles significantly. The pickles steward opened the bottles and handed them to us one by one. We smelled them. We examined them for color and attractive appearance. Then we tasted them.

“The Wilshie entry,” muttered Mr. Booth in my ear, handing me the bottle. I tasted. I tried a fine, big, crunchy hunk of cauliflower. It was good.

“Mrs. Wilshie a good cook?” I inquired, chewing.

“The Wilshies always win,” explained Mr. Booth in my ear, keeping an eye on the crowd. “They’ve taken the prizes for years.”

I tried another bottle. And another. I tried cucumber. I tried onion. And they were all good. Some had too much turmeric. Some a little too much tincture of puncture, or whatever you call that stuff. Then I came to a bottle that, the minute I put it to my nose, I knew was the winner. I took out a large gob of cauliflower. It crumbled with crunchy little sounds in my mouth. It melted. It was sublime. It was perfect.

I handed them to Jim.

“Not the Wilshie entry!” muttered Mr. Booth sharply in my ear. “Not the Wilshie…”

Jim’s eyes rolled. He smacked his lips. He held the bottle up admiringly, and we could hear a sudden stir and murmur from the crowd.

Mr. Booth plucked my sleeve and repeated: “The wrong one!”

“Miles ahead.” declared Jim, taking another chunk of cauliflower handing me the bottle and the fork.

Mr. Booth was white.

“The winnah!” I announced.

Mr. Booth walked away, his shoulders hunched.

We had to judge ketchup, governor’s sauce2, chili sauce, etc., etc., etc. Mr. Booth came back and tried to tell me which were the Wilshie entries, but I ignored him.

“After all, I know my pickles, Mr. Booth,” I told him firmly.

By the time we had finished with the pickle table, the crowd had mysteriously multiplied. until the tent was bulging. People were even lifting up the skirts of the marquee and peering in at us. And a veritable hubbub seemed to have the crowd in its grip.

Heroes For a Day

We next came to the pies.

Mr. Booth came and looked me fair in the eye.

“The pie on the left,” he said, hardly moving his lips.

It was a beauty. But there were many other beauties.

We lifted them and examined them for style. We smelled them. Tested the pastry. Punched with our fingers. Then, one after another, we cut very narrow slices out of them and tasted them.

“You have no right,” declared Mr. Booth, “to mutilate the pies. The rules of judging do not include tasting…”

“How can you judge a pie.” scoffed Jim, “without tasting it?”

By now the crowd was in a roar of excitement.

We could hear people shouting outside. Flushed and excited men and women fought for admission at the tent door.

The pie on the left, as Mr. Booth pointed out, had everything. It was a green apple pie. And from all angles it was perfect.

But as I chewed my portion, tasting it carefully through the mustard, turmeric, etc., of the pickles, I got a tiny bit of core in my mouth.

“Apple core,” I announced, holding up the tiny particle. “Foul.”

The next best pie was a gooseberry pie.

I held it out to Jim. Jim completed his other studies, then handed the pie to Mr. Booth.

“I vote the apple,” said Mr. Booth desperately.

“We vote the gooseberry,” I announced. And you would think the results of the federal elections had been announced. The tent emptied as if by magic, as men and women plunged out into the open air to spread the tidings far and wide.

For it was not Mrs. Wilshie’s pie that had won.

It was a Mrs. Hogan’s.

Bill, the reeve, took us both by the arms. “Boys,” he gasped excitedly, “you’ve done a wonderful thing! You’ve broken a tradition as old as the hills. The Wilshies have always won. They’ve taken all the ribbons for the pickles, the baking, the quilting, the tatting, the crocheting, the needlepoint. The Wilshies have relatives in practically every farm in the county. You can’t get a judge that won’t vote for the Wilshie entries…”

 “Who’s Mrs. Hogan?” I inquired.

“She’s the mother of the boy,” said Bill, “who’s courting my girl. A beautiful girl, if I do say…”

At which moment Jim yelled, “Look out!”

And Mrs. Wilshie’s pie, flung by a lady who undoubtedly was Mrs. Wilshie, caught me fair on the back of the neck.

Aw, well, I didn’t feel like judging any more food anyway. Pickles and pie don’t mix, in case you want to know. And there were tables of cakes, rich, creamy cakes; biscuits, buns, sticky buns, buns with maple sugar on them and stuffed with currants…

So we handed the judging over to the original group who were to have done the judging before we were rung in as pinch-hitters. And we went and mingled with the crowd and visited the cattle, the hogs, the sheep, and later watched the local softball team trim the pants off the visiting team.

And everywhere we went we were beamed on by the multitude.

For we had broken a tradition.

It was not Mrs. Wilshie’s pie that had won. It was Mrs. Hogan’s. A moment later Jim yelled, “Look out!”

Editor’s Notes:

  1. Trichonitis (Trichinosis), is a parasitic disease caused by roundworms. It can result in diarrhea, abdominal pain, and vomiting. ↩︎
  2. Governor’s sauce is also known as Green Tomato Pickle. In Quebec, it is served with tourtiere. ↩︎

Full House!

by

On August 26, 2025

In Birdseye Center, Comic

August 24, 1946

This is not unlike last weeks comic, but 13 years later.

Oh, Momma!

by

On August 16, 2025

In Greg-Jim Story

A pair of small cubs was coming nose down straight on our trail.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, August 17, 1946.

“Never,” declared Jimmie. Frise, “have I seen such blueberries!”

I relaxed on the sunbaked rocks and brushed off a few deerflies.

“Jim,” I submitted, “we Canadians ought to eat about 15 pounds of blueberries every summer. Fifteen pounds each.”

“Well,” blushed Jim, “I’ve eaten about two pounds this morning already. For every handful I’ve put in the pail, I’ve et one handful.”

“The same here,” I admitted contentedly. “Especially those bright blue ones. They’re the aromatic ones. They’re the spicy ones.”

“I find the dark blackish ones more attractive,” demurred Jim, also sitting down and relaxing on the warm rocks. “Whenever I come on one of those patches of big, luscious black ones…”

And he absent-mindedly scooped a handful off the top of his pail and dribbled them, round and cool and tangy, into his upturned mouth.

We were each carrying a small tin pail which, when filled, we emptied into the larger six-quart fruit baskets. We had struck it rich. We had stumbled upon a veritable Garden of Eden of blueberries. All around at marsh we had found, in the big crevices of the hot rocks, huge veins of blueberries, both the bright blue and the dark blue, hanging in great. clusters, so that all you had to do was slip your hand under a cluster, twiddle your fingers, and you had a handful.

“Blueberries, Jim,” I enunciated, “are a fundamental Canadian fruit. The apple, the tomato, the plum, pear, peach – all are foreigners to this soil, like us. But the blueberry belongs to this particular earth, this sky, this climate. I have a theory that men should eat what grows where they live. If you eat the wheat that grows out of the ground you stand on, wheat that is nourished by the same air you breathe, and the same sun that filters its way through that particular air, then you are properly nourished according to the laws of nature.”

“How’s that?” inquired Jim, as if chewing blueberries had interfered with his hearing.

“I say.” I repeated, scooping a handful off the top of my own pail, “to be healthy and in tune with the life around you, you should eat food grown off the soil on which you stand. In other words, we Canadians should eat blueberries, maple syrup, and any other characteristic foods peculiar to ourselves; and we should not eat imported foods, not even the wheat our bread is made of. Our bread should be made of wheat grown within 50 miles of where we live…”

“What particular virtue would there be…?” asked Jim.

“Who are the healthiest and hardiest people in the world today, Jim?” I demanded. “The Scotch? They are a frugal people who eat the oats that are grown within the confines of their own parish. The South Sea islanders? They eat the food they pick on their own little. coral island. The Yugoslavs? The Chinese? Man, if we had to live under the conditions those races live under, we’d perish in a generation. Yet, what is the basic difference between those hardy people and us races that have to spend more millions per annum on public health than we do on education?”

Such is Familiarity

“Okay,” asked Jim, “wham im de dimmerance?” (He had taken another handful off the top of his pail.)

“The difference is,” I explained, “that, owing to economic difficulties, those hardy races eat what they grow in their own parish. Whereas we scour the ends of the earth for what we eat? We lack vim. We lack ruggedness. We lack contact with the earth, the climate, the atmosphere in which we live. We are thawed out. We are anaemic, debilitated. We call ourselves Canadians, but we are full of California fruit, Oriental oils, wheat grown thousands of miles away. Our body cells are built of materials as foreign to the soil on which we stand as we can possibly imagine.”

“I don’t see,” said Jim, swallowing with a dreamy expression, “that that has anything to do with it.”

“Jim,” I asserted, “any fisherman knows that you can catch minnows in one lake, and fish with them in another lake, and have no luck at all. Whereas, if you catch the minnows in the same lake as you fish in, you have the greatest luck. It is scientifically proven, for example, that the gray leech of Lake Simcoe, which is the favorite bass food in Lake Simcoe, and which will give you a catch of bass under almost any conditions in Lake Simcoe, won’t work at all in the Kawartha lakes only a few miles away.”

“That’s a matter of familiarity,” protested Jim. “The bass know the familiar food…”

“Precisely,” I agreed. “And our bodies are like feeding bass. Our bodies know the familiar airs and flavors of things grown out of the same soil and the same air we’re grown out of.”

“Then, that’s why westerners are husky,” suggested Jim. “They eat the wheat grown in the west.”

“And that’s why maritimers are so husky,” I confirmed. “They eat the fish out of the waters all around them, and the potatoes out of the soil on which they stand…”

Blueberry Paradise

“What’s Ontario got?” demanded Jim at little anxiously.

“Blueberries,” I announced proudly, holding up my pail.

So we sat, meditating, and scooping up the odd handful of the sweet, aromatic, spicy little round berries, while the mid-morning sun beat down on the rocks around us, and the wind, cured across a thousand square miles of rock and pine just like this surrounding us, seemed to fill our lungs with only half a breath.

“I think,” said Jim, “I am a little faster picker than you.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” I rejoined.

“I’ve dumped my pail three times,” he said.

“And I,” announced, “have dumped my pail three times. And I’ve got the pail ready for a fourth dump.”

“I’ve eaten more than you,” explained Jim.

“You can’t prove it,” I rejoiced.

“What I say is,” said Jim, struggling into an upright posture, “we work towards the cottage now, picking only the choicest berries. We have the baskets full. We have the pails almost full. Let’s eat a few more handfuls. Let’s top off the baskets AND the pails with just the prize-winners. And then we can have a swim and… what are we having for lunch?”

“Those bass we caught last night,” I advised.

“What are the ladies going to do with these berries?” demanded Jim darkly.

“Well,” I cogitated, “this afternoon, they are going to bake four fresh blueberry pies. And when I say FRESH blueberry pies, I hope you know what I mean. Not blueberry pies made out of canned blueberries. Not pies made out of home-preserved blueberries. But pies baked out of FRESH blueberries picked this morning. Cool, tight-skinned, explosive blueberries. You can taste them bursting in the pie…”

“How far are we from home?” asked Jim, struggling to his feet.

“About one mile,” I said. “We’ll wander around this end of the marsh and look for just the toppers.”

Personally, I don’t know any place in the world as beautiful as Canada. I’ve seen them all. They have their points. But here are the waste places of Canada. Here are the deserts of Canada. Nothing forever will grow here but what nature planted.

You can’t get farms here, you can’t get factories. No villages will ever come, except to keep a small general store for the accommodation of the cottagers, who will come to find a little air and peace and quiet amid the rocks and the spruce and the pines and the water.

And the air. As Jim and I meandered over the rocks, prospecting every vein and every lode, we could feel the Canadian air reaching down and back into our very vitals. When I am in the woods, I think my lungs are the shape of a pillow-case. In cities, no air ever penetrates into what you might call the “ears” of the pillow-case. But in the wild rocks of the north, every breath you take sends air deep and far into those “ears” of your lungs.

It was getting towards noon. We had filled the baskets. Our pails were full. There is a curious thing about blueberry picking. No matter how often you go, no matter what old, reliable patches you call on, it so happens that after your pails are full, you come, at last, to a new patch, a patch never noticed before, that is laden with the largest, coolest, most silvery sheened, most heavy-laden of all the patches you have found in the day.

It was so this morning. We finished prospecting the marsh’s rim. We had wandered a little west of the old familiar route which years of prospecting had proven the best blueberry terrain. And then we found Paradise.

There are two species of blueberry, as I have already suggested. There is the familiar huckleberry, almost jet black, with its purplish insides straining to burst through the delicate skin. Jim goes for them.

But there is also the really blue berry, with a skin as blue as the sky on an August day with the west wind blowing. Its delicate skin is covered with a dust as fragile as the dust a butterfly’s wing. It does not often grow as big as the black huckleberry, but it has a curious spicy flavor that sets it, in my opinion. far ahead of its fat, purplish relative.

Out of Season

On the edge of a small rock gulch, I found, around a copse of runty pine and baby birch, such a patch of my sky-blue lovelies as I had never seen before. On tall, slender twigs, great festoons of bright powdery blues as big – pardon me! – as robin’s eggs. While Jim, down in the rock gulch itself, in the shade of larger trees, found, snuggled close to the earth, a sort of witches’ treasure of his favorite great big black ones – as big, pardon me, as – gooseberries!

As a matter of procedure, I tried a few handfuls first, before picking for the pail. When I straightened up, to inform Jim that he was wasting his time down in the gulch, I happened to notice a movement amid the bracken and juniper.

A black, glossy movement.

I focussed my eyes sharply. And there, shyly, embarrassed, as little babies approach, came two brown-nosed bear cubs.

Bear cubs!

In August, bear cubs? Where there are cubs, the mother is nearby.

“Jim!” I said hoarsely.

But Jimmie was busy chewing.

So I slid down into the gulch with him. “Jim,” I said, in a low voice, “bear cubs. Follow.”

I said it, so to speak, in transit.

Jim followed.

We scaled the far side of the small gulch and looked back. “Where’s your basket?” whispered Jim.

I did not need to reply. My basket was where I had left it, over on the far side of the rocks.

As we moved, almost as delicately as shadows, out of sight of the two cubs, they were in the act of discovering my basket.

We moved smoothly and rapidly about 100 yards before pausing for breath.

“Where’s YOUR basket?” I demanded.

“I left it,” cleared Jim, “in the gully.”

“What will the women-folk say,” I accused, “when we turn up with these two pails?”

“Listen, Greg,” said Jim, “when you see bear cubs, there is no time to waste. See a grown bear, and you usually see him skedaddling as fast as he can go.”

“But when you see cubs,” I suggested, “the situation reversed?”

“Exactly,” said Jim, sitting down to catch his breath and to hoard his precious pail.

We sat on a slight eminence of rock, gazing back whence we had come, ready for instant action.

“Hist!” said Jim.

The Strategic Retreat

And we could hear crackling and crushing sounds, as of baskets being squashed; also sounds of animal greed floating on the mid-day calm air – grunts, growls, slurps, guzzles…”

“Jim!” I suggested. “That isn’t cubs…”

So we picked up our pails hastily and put another good 200 yards between us and the sounds. Two hundred yards of rock and hummock and ledge and crevice – it was hard going. Then we relaxed again, choosing a particularly high eminence of rock, with lots of field of fire, as the infantry say, all around us.

And we listened. And we peered.

And suddenly, over the far ridge, behind which lay the small rock gulch where we had parted with our berry baskets, we beheld three enthusiastic forms appear, in every movement expressing delight and concurrence. A pair of small cubs was coming, nose down, straight on our trail.

“Jim,” I gasped, as I made my feet, “leave the pail, leave the pail…”

“Eh?” huffed Jim.

“Remember,” I said, already in high gear, “the story of the Russians and the wolves chasing their sleigh, and how they threw out the robes… and the baggage… and finally, the child…?”

Jim laid his berry pail like an offering on the rock, and then joined me in free knee-action.

We put a good half-mile between us and the pails before relaxing once more. This time on the highest rock for miles around. With hundreds of yards of field of fire around us on all sides.

We waited until we got our breath.

“The bears figure…” puffed Jim… “that it’s easier to chase us and take our berries off us than… pick them… themselves…”

“It’s a great discovery,” I whuffed, “for the bears… human beings to pick their berries…”

And then we got mad.

And we got up and hurried to the cottage.

And we got my Winchester .33, which hangs on the wall awaiting the deer season.

And full of ire, we retraced our path.

We found the pails, empty, squashed, kicked about, as though by little children in mischief.

We found our baskets, empty, stained, squashed, chewed.

But of bears we saw never a trace.

And far and wide, over the afternoon rocks, the sun shimmered, the heat swooned, and the blueberries flirted at us from every crevice and every ledge.

Here’s How!

by

On March 8, 2025

In Greg-Jim Story

“Observe now,” I said. “Watch how this small shovelful is instantly seized upon by the fire.”

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, March 9, 1946.

“PFFTHFF,” said Frise.

“Which?” I inquired.

“Thipff,” said Jim. “Thoop! Something blew in my mouth. Felt like a pigeon feather or something…”

“Just a little soot,” I assured him. “There’s black on your lip.”

“Pffthff,” repeated Jimmie, wiping his mouth.

“Here, pay attention to your driving!” I warned. “You’re steering all over the street.”

“Well, if you had something blown in your mouth,” complained Jim, “you wouldn’t like it either.”

“Aw, just a flake of soot,” I submitted. “From one of the big factory chimneys.”

“It felt as big as a Plymouth Rock feather1,” said Jim, still wiping.

“You can’t be fussy,” I philosophized, “and live in cities. It’s a wonder more things don’t blow into our mouths. Worse than hen feathers.”

“Doubtless,” said Jim, winding up the car window, “we do have a lot of pretty gruesome things blown in our mouths and noses without ever knowing it. When you look at these city streets, in the month of March, with all the accumulated filth of four months of winter beginning to lie revealed, it makes you think, eh?”

“What careless, dirty, sloppy creatures human beings are,” I mused. “Tossing away cigarette butts, packages, candy wrappers. Airily flinging away on to the public domain, any junk they have no use for…”

“Look up there!” pointed Jim.

From the upstairs window of a house we were passing, a woman was leaning out and beating a large mop against the bricks, down wind. A trail of dust, hair, and other light debris floated in a cloud into the public air, and into whatever windows were down wind.

“We’re really,” I submitted, “not much advanced since the days of Queen Elizabeth, when everybody just opened the upstairs windows and dumped the sewage and the garbage out into the street. That was what gutters were for, in the old days.”.

“What’s the difference, actually,” added Jim, “between a lady of Tudor times dumping the slop pail out the upstairs window, and that lady back there beating out her mop into the open street?”

“Thipff,” I said. “Thpooie! Jim, do you see anything…?”

I leaned out so Jim could look at my mouth.

“I just felt something,” I said, “blow into my mouth then. Do you see any hair or wool or anything?”

Jim slowed the car and examined me.

“Just a little soot, by the look of it,” he said.

“Thank goodness,” I cried. “I half fancied I had caught something that woman was shaking out of her mop. Thpew! Fffptt!”

I got out my hankie and wiped off my tongue.

“In days to come2,” asserted Jim, “when public health and sanitation is as well looked after as it should be, these days we live in will be regarded with exactly the same horror with which we look back on Henry the Eighth’s time. When you think of our garbage wagons plodding up the windy streets, with the boys hoisting up those battered, ramshackle containers we know as garbage cans…”

“Leaving a trail behind them,” I cut in, “of little bits of garbage, dirt and filth along the streets, to be rolled over and squashed by traffic, to be ground into particles, to dry and be picked up by the breeze and wafted far and wide.”

“The city of the future,” declared Jimmie, “will supply the householder with official cartons, sanitary cartons, in which all refuse from sweepings to food waste will be placed and sealed. These sealed containers will be picked up every other day by travelling incinerators which will burn the refuse under intense electric heat…”

“Haw,” I snorted, “you mean atomic atomizers3. A neat little truck with a small quantity of atomic energy, which will consume the refuse so that not even any smoke or steam is injected into the public air.”

“We’ll Lose Our Smokes”

“The public air!” cried Jim. “What a perfect expression. The public air. Air is about the only thing that is truly public. You can’t confine it. Or if you do, it goes bad. It isn’t like land or water, which people can own or control. Air belongs to all men alike. And there ought to be some recognition of that fact. Anybody who pollutes the air should be taken in hand as a public enemy.”

“Well, when you toss a cigarette butt out the car window,” I submitted, “as you did just now, you are a public enemy. That cigarette butt is fragile, and the nearest thing to dust. In a few minutes, under the rush of this morning traffic, that cigarette will be ground under a car’s wheel and pulverized. The wisp of paper will float off in the breeze. The scattered little grains of tobacco will join the indescribable and complex mass of dirt and dust that swirls forever over the earth. Any germs from your mouth that might have adhered to the wet end of the butt will be set free to carry, infection…”

“I haven’t any infection!” protested Jimmie.

“How do you know?” I inquired. “It takes 48 hours for the infection of the common cold to assert itself in you. How do you know you haven’t got the mumps, quincy, croup, or even leprosy and don’t know it yet? But you tossed that cigarette butt out into the public air as cheerfully and thoughtlessly as that woman back there was beating out her dirty mop!”

“Cigarette butts are the least of our worries,” came back Jim. “It’s far worse things we should put our minds on.”

“No, Jim,” I countered. “We’ve got to start with ourselves. We’ve got to stop tossing cigarette butts into the public air before we begin trying to correct the offences of others.”

“Listen,” said Jim, slowing the car he could argue better, “if we start with cigarette butts, the next thing somebody is going to argue about is smoking4. They are going to say that it is a public offence to fill the public air with cigarette smoke. That is the thin edge of the wedge. Once you start reforming, somebody comes along with a better reform. We begin with cigarette butts. Somebody comes along and takes away our smokes.”

“Common sense is all I suggest,” I asserted. “It stands to reason a little tobacco smoke, puffed into the air and vanishing instantly, is far different thing from a wet, sticky cigarette butt flung out at random into the public domain.”

“Common sense,” decreed Jim, “does not enter into the realm of public affairs. If you are going into the reform business, I warn you, be very careful where you start.”

My eyes were caught, at that instant, by a startling spectacle. We had passed out of the residential district and were entering the downtown area. And from the tall chimney of a factory, right ahead of us, there suddenly billowed up the biggest, blackest, oiliest boil of smoke I ever saw. It was like an explosion of smoke. And it fairly wallowed out of the tall stack.

“Whoa, Jim!” I cried, seizing his arm. “Slow down! Just take a look at that smoke!”

Jim ran to the curb and stopped. We sat and gazed at the spectacle. Against the gray March sky, the jet black smoke poured almost like a liquid. In vast, fat coils, it rolled thickly, heavily. It created a giant smudge across the sky and dissipated itself slowly. The buildings beyond were blocked from view.

“For Pete’s sake!” breathed Jimmie.

“In this day and age,” I enunciated. “Talk about capitalistic insolence!”

“Why,” cried Jim, “that’s an absolute outrage. Fouling the air. Blackening the property for miles around. An injury not merely to the public health but to private property!! Something ought to be done!”

“The owner of that factory,” I declared hotly, “is the perfect example of the lawless adventurer. He could put a smoke abater on that chimney…”

“He doesn’t even need that,” interrupted Jim. “All he has to do is feed the furnace properly. A little coal at a time. Build up a fire, little by little, adding a little coal at a time. And the fire consumes the smoke.”

“Maybe it isn’t the capitalist’s fault at all,” I suggested. “Eh? Maybe it’s the fault of some lazy beggar of a fireman5. A proletariat.”

“Proletarian,” corrected Jim. “Some lazy proletarian who can’t be bothered attending a fire properly, but comes along once every few hours and dumps a whole load of coal on.”

“And wastes the best of the coal,” I agreed, “by sending it up the chimney in smoke!”

“Correct,” cried Jim. “What is all that black smoke coiling so oily into the air? It’s pure chemical gas, full of carbon and valuable heating elements, being wasted in the air.”

“Let’s Do Something!”

“A waste to his employer,” I summed up, “and an offence against the public. Jim! Let’s act. Enough of this talk. Let’s act!”

“How?” demanded Jim.

“Let’s go in,” I said, “and catch that fireman red-handed. Let’s drag him out to take a look at what he’s doing with that chimney. And then, let’s tell him a thing or two about wasting fuel and ruining the public health and damaging private property all around the neighborhood.”

Jim glanced at his watch.

“We should be at the office,” he said.

“It won’t take 10 minutes,” I protested. “Jim, if we have the public interest at heart, we’ve got to DO something about it. There are enough people willing to talk about it. Let us DO something!”

“First let us speak to the manager,” suggested Jim.

We drove down and parked opposite the factory. We walked across the street, dodging the morning business rush traffic, and entered the front office doorway.

There was only a secretary in view, taking off her hat.

The building was icy cold.

“Is the manager about?” I inquired.

“He won’t be down till around 10,” said the young lady, shivering and rubbing her hands.

“Is there a foreman or superintendent we could see?” suggested Jim.

“No,” said the young lady, “we aren’t back in production yet, you see? A skeleton staff comes on around 10 o’clock. We’re re- organizing the plant…”

“I’ll tell you,” I said very kindly, “we’re a committee of citizens interested in public health and such, things, see? And we noticed the awful clouds of smoke, terrible black smoke, coming from the smoke-stack of this factory.”

“I see,” said the young lady, drawing herself up very stiff.

“We don’t wish to make trouble, of course,” I added, “but if we could just see the fireman, whoever he is. The janitor?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t the authority,” said the young lady coldly.

“Still, you wouldn’t put anything in our way.” I submitted, “if we just dropped in and had a chat with the fireman? We wish merely to explain to him that he is not only creating a public nuisance, a public menace, but he is also wasting his employer’s fuel. If he stoked the fire a little at a…”

“Take that door to the left,” said the young lady, rubbing her hands and hunching up her shoulders.

The door led down a staircase to the basement. We could hear furnace sounds along the passage-way. And we walked along to the furnace-room where we discovered an elderly gent with a shovel patting ashes into ash cans.

The furnace was one of those old-fashioned monsters set in a pit.

“Good-day,” we said pleasantly.

“Good-day to you,” agreed the old boy, relaxing.

“Look,” I said, “you’ll excuse us for coming in on you like this. But we only have your interest at heart.”

“Life insurance?” asked the old boy.”

“No,” said Jim. “Smoke. Do you realize what a terrific smoke barrage you are creating? Will you come outside a minute and take a look at your chimney?”

“Aw,” said the old boy, “run along!”

“Pardon me,” I began firmly and loudly, for the old boy was making a racket with his shovel. “We haven’t seen the manager of this place yet. We’ve come to you, first. It’s for your own good. We happen to be a committee of citizens…”

“Self-appointed,” put in Jim, not too loud.

“…a committee of citizens interested,” I pursued, “in public health.”

“Run along, now,” said the old boy, commencing on the ashes again.

“I suggest,” I shouted above the racket, “that you at least listen to what we have to say. Otherwise, we will take steps that will astonish you.”

That always gets them.

“What’ll you do?” he demanded belligerently.

“Are you aware of the smoke nuisance you are creating?” I came back.

“I’ve heard little else,” he declared, “for 30 years.”

“Do you realize,” I insinuated, “that for 30 years you have been advertising to the whole world that you are a punk fireman?”

“Is that so?” he scoffed.

“Only a dope,” I pursued, “would heap coal on a fire so that half of it goes up in smoke.”

“Is-that-so?” he admired.

“If you lay the coal on,” I informed him, “a little at a time, so that the fire builds up and consumes the gases, little by little, there is no smoke.”

“You don’t say?” he sneered, wide-eyed.

“May I demonstrate?” I asked politely, ignoring his bad manners.

“Certainly,” he replied, handing me the shovel.

I removed my coat. I seized the shovel. I tripped open the fire door. I took a moderate scoop of coal.

“Observe now,” I said. “Watch how this small shovelful is instantly seized upon by the fire, the gases consumed, and the fuel embodied immediately, as it were, in the fire.”

“Well, well, well,” said the old boy, relaxing back into his chair.

At which moment, we heard footsteps of the stairs and a man who looked like a gas-meter reader, with a small ledger under arm, appeared at the furnace-room door.

“I warned you, Peters,” he said sharply.

“What can I do?” said the old boy, getting hurriedly out of his chair. “When citizens’ committees keep coming down and showing me how to fire my own furnace.. .”

“What’s this?” said the stranger.

“Don’t blame me,” said the old boy, Peters. “Blame these guys. I’m tending my furnace, when they come down and interfere. They insist on stoking her…”

“Peters,” said the stranger severely, “never before have such billows of smoke come from your furnace. We’ve had 40 complaints inside the last 20 minutes.”

“You’re a Menace”

“Am I stoking it?” demanded Peters sadly. “Or is this little guy?”

“What are you doing here?” demanded the gas-meter man bitterly.

“I came down-we came down,” I expostulated, “when we saw those clouds of smoke, to protest, and to show this man how to feed a furnace properly…”

“Yah, that’s their story,” said old Mr. Peters.

“I think, gentlemen,” said the stranger acidly, “if you will leave matters of this kind in the hands of the civic authorities…”

“We didn’t make that smoke,” I stated pleasantly. “Why, I had only laid on a couple of small shovels…”

“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said the stranger, opening his book.

“Come on,” muttered Jimmie, helping me into my coat.

So we stamped upstairs.

“You see how it is,” said Jim.

“I didn’t know there was a civic department working on smoke,” I protested.

“Probably the health department,” said Jim. “Or maybe the police.”

We crossed over into the car. Jim started her and gave her the gun. We pushed out into the traffic.

At King St. a motorcycle cop appeared beside us. He rode level and then drew ahead, his hand up.

“He’s signalling you, Jim,” I warned.

We drew into the curb.

The cop parked in front of us and walked back.

Jim ran down the car window for him.

“Are you aware,” he asked pleasantly, “that there is a by-law referring to excessive exhaust smoke from motor cars?”

“Eh?” cried Jim.

“Do you know,” continued the cop cheerfully, “that this old stoneboat of yours kicks up so much smoke from the exhaust that you are apt to cause a fatal accident any day?”

“Smoke?” queried Jim, giving me an agonized side glance.

“I came up behind you.” said the cycle cop, “just when you pulled away from the curb a couple of blocks back, and I couldn’t see my handle-bars in front of me. I tell you, you’re a menace to traffic. How about getting that exhaust looked at? How about getting some gaskets? How about checking your oil consumption? Eh?”

“Okay,” said Jim, “okay, officer, I’ll attend to it right away.”

So we drove on to the parking lot, not even thinking.

Editor’s Notes:

  1. A Plymouth Rock is a type of chicken. ↩︎
  2. Clean air and anti-pollution laws were still to come. With so many coal furnaces (including in people’s homes), and all of the smoking, the air must have been not very pleasant. ↩︎
  3. People still had great hope for atomic energy at the time. ↩︎
  4. There were few smoking restrictions at the time, as you could smoke in most public spaces. ↩︎
  5. In this context, the fireman is the one who stokes the furnace with coal. ↩︎

Track!

by

On February 25, 2025

In Birdseye Center, Comic

February 23, 1946

‘Operation Muskox’

by

On February 8, 2025

In Greg-Jim Story

It is astonishing how hard it is to crack an egg into a frying pan with mitts on.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 9, 1946.

“They must be a tough bunch,” commented Jimmie Frise, looking up from the newspaper.

“Who?” I inquired.

“These kids on Operation Muskox1,” said Jim. “They’re going to drive snowmobiles loaded with fighting equipment from away up at Fort Churchill, on Hudson Bay, straight across the sub-Arctics, to Edmonton. Three thousand miles. In winter.”

“It’s time,” I informed him, “that we Canadians lost our awe of winter. What’s so wonderful about these soldiers going on a hike across northern Canada? Our mining men have been doing it for 30, 40 years.”

“Well,” said Jim, shivering, “I wouldn’t care to be with them.”

“Look,” I submitted. “We Canadians have a very great responsibility. We are one of the small handful of nations bordering on the Arctic. There’s Russia, Finland, Norway, Sweden -and us. Now, all those other nations of the Arctic are very Arctic-conscious. But we Canadians all stand with our faces to the south. We yearn over the border southward. The Swedes and Norwegians and Finns developed ages ago an Arctic culture. They have found mines, and built towns and cities, far into the Arctic. Now Russia is doing the same. But we still huddle along the U.S. border; and most young Canadians dream of Hollywood.”

“And most old Canadians,” laughed Jimmie, “dream of Florida.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “Instead of loving winter, we hate it. Instead of facing north, we huddle south. Suggest to a young man that he pack his bag and vanish into the north and he shudders. What we need is a new Horace Greeley2 to say to the Canadians, ‘Go north, young man, go north!’ That way, fortune lies.”

“Maybe this Muskox expedition, if it gets enough publicity,” suggested Jim, “will inspire a lot of young men to go really north. I mean, into the real Arctic.”

“The Arctic,” I assured him, “has had any amount of publicity. Did you ever hear of Sir John Franklin3? One hundred and twenty-five years ago, when he was just a junior officer of the British navy, Lieut. John Franklin was sent on a sort of Operation Muskox by the British admiralty. He was to go overland, from somewhere in Hudson Bay, to explore the Polar sea and find out if there was a northwest passage to the Pacific.”

“Somebody,” muttered Jim, “is always looking after us. This new Operation Muskox is intended to try out military equipment in case we ever need to fight anybody on our northern frontier. Franklin was sent by the British government to find out how quickly the Royal Navy could get from the north Atlantic to the Pacific.”

“Maybe,” I pointed out, “some British merchants had friends at the admiralty. Merchants are always looking for a reduction in freight rates.”

“What happened to Franklin?” inquired Jim.

“Lieut. Franklin, with two midshipmen named Hood and Back,” I recounted, “and a naturalist by the name of Dr. Richardson, arrived at Fort York, on Hudson Bay-that’s a little south of Churchill – in 1819, and spent four years exploring. In canoes they worked in to Lake Winnipeg, then up to Lake Athabasca, then up to Great Slave lake and around it. Then down the Coppermine river to the Polar sea.”

“In 1819?” cried Jimmie.

“Eight hundred miles north and west of Churchill, where our Muskox expedition is now,” I assured him, “Franklin and his expedition…”

“Just the four of them?” protested Jim.

“No,” I admitted. “They had a character by the name of John Hepburn, an ordinary seaman, to whom Franklin more than once credits the saving of the lives of the entire expedition. They also had French-Canadian canoemen and Indian guides and hunters to supply them with game.”

“Holy smoke,” sighed Jim. “No airplanes to drop supplies to them!”

1,200 Miles on Snow-shoes

“In 1821,” I informed him, “one of the midshipmen, Back, with three Indians, spent five months travelling back over the trail for provisions, on snow-shoes, from November to March, a distance of 1,200 miles. And all he had for shelter was one blanket and one deer skin.”

“Holy…” cried Jim. “A midshipman!”

“All of Back’s snow-shoe journey.” I pointed out, “was far north of where Operation Muskox is going!”

“So it’s nothing new?” supposed Jim.

“New!” I scoffed. “Listen: About every hundred miles farther into the Arctic Franklin’s expedition from the British navy went, they would come to a large log house. And in that house, 125 years ago, they would meet a gentleman by the name of McVicar or McGillivray or McDougall or McDonald…”

“Aha,” cut in Jim, “the fur traders!”

“Who had been up there,” I finished, “all their lives, and had succeeded somebody by the name of McAndrews or Fraser or Logan, who had been living, quite cheerfully, all their lives, for a hundred years back. Jim, Scotland occupied the Arctic 200 years ago.”

“Then,” protested Jim, “why isn’t the Arctic populated now?”

“We ran out of Scotchmen,” I explained.

Jim got up and looked out the window. And shivered.

“It’s hard to believe,” he murmured.

“Skiing,” I stated, “is doing something to arouse in young Canadians a little love of winter. It’s only in cities and towns that winter looks horrible. And that’s not on account of winter. That’s because of cities and towns. We build our cities and towns for summer. In Norway, and our other Arctic neighbors, they build lovely chalets that look perfect in a winter setting. The average Canadian house, in winter, looks like a cat left out in the rain.”

“And our dress, in Canada,” contributed Jimmie. “Our Canadian styles, for coats, suits, boots and shoes, are set by a gang of gents from the suit and cloak trade in annual convention meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, or Miami, Florida. Canadians should develop a style of clothing that is Canadian. It should be based on Scottish, Norwegian and Russian fashions. We should wear heavy tweeds and homespuns. Our winter boots should be stout half-Wellingtons and thick brogues, instead of these silly St. Louis, Missouri, low shoes, with goloshes…”

“That was what I was saying,” I reminded. “We yearn over the southern border!”

“There’s nothing we can do about it” concluded Jim, still shivering at what he saw out the window – the grimy, sleety, slushy, sooty prospect of Toronto in mid-winter.

“Oho, yes there is,” I retorted.

Jim turned and looked at me sarcastically.

“We,” I enunciated, “suppose ourselves to be sportsmen. In spring, summer and autumn, we fish and hunt. We love to disport ourselves in the open air – so long as it isn’t cool.”

“Fair weather sports?” suggested Jim.

“I’m afraid that’s what we are, Jim,” I stated sadly.

“Who would want to be out rabbit hunting,” he demanded, “on a day like this?”

“I bet, out in the country, it’s a swell day,” I asserted. “What makes the day look dismal are those sloppy, grimy buildings, covered with soot and dirty snow. Out in the country even with this gray sky, I’ll bet there is a zest and tang to the air. I’ll bet the landscape, the spruce and cedars, the skyline, with the tracery of elm trees, the woodlots dark and bluish in the distance…”

“It Would Be Romantic”

“You may have something there,” said Jim with animation. “We speak of a man being ‘bushed’ from living too long in the wilderness. I wonder if we city people aren’t ‘citied’ the same way?”

“It could be,” I agreed. “Maybe that’s why Canadians as a whole dislike winter. They’re ‘citied’.”

“Personally,” stated Jim loudly, “I don’t see any reason why two guys like us – who enjoy every minute of the outdoors from May to November – couldn’t get just as big a kick out of the woods in winter.”

“There’s no fishing or shooting at this season,” I reminded.

“No, but there are winter birds and animals, to see,” declared Jim, “and tracks in the snow. A true lover of the outdoors can surely get as big a kick out of trailing a fox or a partridge in the snow… saaay, how about it?”

“We could go,” I concurred, standing up, “in honor of the boys on Operation Muskox. To show our appreciation of what that little band of Canadians is doing for Canadians as a whole, some of us old-timers ought to spend a few winter week-ends, camping on their old familiar fishing or hunting grounds.”

“Listen,” cried Jimmie enthusiastically, turning his back on the window., “how about going up and camping on Manitou Creek somewhere! Maybe at the Blue Hill where I lost that big buck two seasons ago. Man, it would be wonderful to see that country in mid-winter! It would be romantic.”

“We can drive to Fraserville,” I contributed, delighted. “And snow-shoe in to Manitou creek. It isn’t four miles.”

“We’ll camp beside Blue Hill,” exulted Jimmie, “on the sheltered side, whichever way the wind is blowing.”

“We’ll take my little silk tent,” I listed.

“And my red tarpaulin, which we’ll set up with sticks for a windbreak,” contributed Jim.

“I’ll wear snow-shoes,” I set forth.

“And I’ll wear skis,” determined Jim.

“And our sleeping bags,” I added.

“We’ll get a sled,” enthused Jim, “on which we can stow all our…”

“Nothing doing!” I interrupted firmly. “You can’t haul a sled on skis!”

“Why, you’d never feel it,” protested Jim. “A small sled, and you on snow-shoes…”

“We’ll each,” I insisted, “carry our share in pack-sacks. Our bedrolls, spare clothes, food. I’ll carry the little silk tent. You carry the tarpaulin.”

“We ought to haul a sled,” muttered Jim.

“It’s only for Saturday and Sunday,” I pointed out.

So Friday night, after the most delightful three previous, nights of planning, packing, drawing up lists, replanning, unpacking, repacking and relisting, we loaded Jim’s closed car and headed for Fraserville, where we had arranged with Joe Hurtubise, over the long-distance telephone, to spend the night at Joe’s combination general store and hotel.

The minute we got outside the city limits, we knew we were doing the right thing. Not half a mile past the last street car terminal, the whole face of nature altered. The grimy city was left behind and our headlights bored into a wonderland of white. And every mile grew more snowy and more chaste and beautiful. Not 10 miles out of town a big jack-rabbit bounded across the highway in our headlights.

“Ah, boy!” gloated Jimmie at the steering wheel.

Through silent, serene wintry country we entered small villages that looked beautiful in the white night. We proceeded slowly through a couple of larger towns, seeing once more, though not quite as repulsive, the slushy, murky ruin that a town makes of winter.

Then came the rising country where winter in its rarest beauty really comes – the beginning of the highlands of Ontario. The highway was cleanly plowed and swept, and our car soared through the gleaming night like a bird. Shadows of woods, deep shade of cedar and spruce, became more frequent. Inside the car, we could feel the new, keener freshness of the air.

Joe Hurtubise was waiting up for us and put our laden car in his shed. We had a light snack of cold pork, pumpkin pie and boiled tea, then went to bed with instructions to Joe to wake us well before 6 a.m. so we could set out on our Operation Muskox with the actual dawn.

It was a beautiful dawn. Not a soul in Fraserville was awake when we stepped out of Joe’s door into the pearly frost of a perfect morn. The cold pinched the corners of our nostrils.

Jim got into his ski harness, I harnessed on my snow-shoes and Joe helped us both get into our pack-sacks.

“Well, so long,” called Joe, who always seemed to perish with the cold,” so long boys, I still think you is nuts.”

And we set off down the road for the side road that leads to Manitou creek – an old familiar road in November.

A Strange Country

It was incredibly unfamiliar in February. It was like an undiscovered country. Jim went ahead, sliding long-legged on his skis. I came behind, wide-legging it on my snow- shoes. Up hills, down dales, past swampy bends full of silent and deathly cedars we have never noticed in November, we made good time. We halted frequently to gaze on the landscape, so strange, though we knew every yard of it in summer and autumn. Unknown valleys appeared, only a few hundred yards off the beaten path. Strange hummocks and little rocky cliffs stood forth which even in autumn, when the leaves are down; we did not know existed. We halted for chickadees. We saw a bevy of redpolls, not much bigger than chickadees, but of a rosy and innocent chubbiness, like cherubs. Several Canada jays – the gray, bullheaded silent jays – floated ghostly into sight of us to mutter mysteriously at our intrusion. We saw all kinds of tracks – squirrel, mice and what must have been a porcupine because it left a wide furrow in the snow.

“To think,” said Jim, “what we have been missing all these years.”

“You notice,” I said, “that it is getting kind of hazy. I think we ought to get in to Blue Hill and get our camp made…”

A little wind began to disturb the bare and rigid branches of the trees overhead. A few snowflakes hustled past, like vagrants. It grew grayer. Jim, leading, paused only once after a long steady march. And this time, it was to beat his arms around his chest.

“Colder, eh?” he called.

“You ought to use snow-shoes,” I informed him. “They keep you warmer than skis.”

Jim skied on. Up hill, down dale, round curves, through swamp and ever darkening woods, we bore on; and about mid-morning, coming out on a plateau, we saw Blue Hill not half a mile ahead. We studied the wind, now steadily rising, and decided the southwest side of Blue Hill would be the place to pitch our tent.

Blue Hill is one of the wildest and most rugged features of the country where we hunt deer. It is surrounded by a tangled forest of living trees and the charred remains of ancient bush fires.

But upholstered with snow, it was the simplest thing in the world to work around the southern side and find an ideal camping spot. Manitou creek, still gurgling, guaranteed us our water supply not 50 feet away. Old Blue Hill, granite and grim, broke the rising northeaster that was showering small, anxious snowflakes in intermittent gusts on us.

We downed our pack-sacks. With my snow-shoes, we dug down and found a good level spot for our tent. We strung up the tent. We cut balsam boughs for the floor of the tent, thick, deep, fragrant. We set up the tarpaulin. We unpacked our gear. I rigged a shelf of boughs in a deep snowbank for our larder. Jim got a fire going.

“I’m perished,” he said.

“I’ll be cook,” I offered.

And while the sky dropped lower and the northeast wind began to wail in the trees and shove at our tent, I proceeded with lunch.

It is astonishing how hard it is to crack an egg into a frying pan with mitts on.

Jim went into the tent, and came out immediately to stand near the fire and beat his arms around his chest.

“What’ll we do after lunch?” he quivered.

“We could mooch around, looking for wild animal tracks.” I suggested, delicately breaking another egg with my mitts on.

“It’s going to snow and drift,” said Jim, “and the tracks will be all covered up.”

“We can go for a hike, and look at some of the runways we know.” I suggested, shaking the frying pan with my mitts on.

“We don’t want to get lost, with a blizzard coming on,” warned Jim.

“We won’t get lost,” I asserted. “We know this country like a book.”

Jim stopped thumping his arms and gazed around at the landscape.

“I don’t recognize it at all,” he said hollowly. “I never saw this country before in my life…”

“Now, now, now!” I cautioned, poking the bacon with my long-handled camp fork.

“Have you been in the tent yet?” asked Jim, resuming his beating. “It’s like a damp ice-box.”

“We can open the flaps,” I explained, “and let the heat of the fire reflect in…”

Jim tied the flaps back, but the gathering wind ballooned the little tent grotesquely. It pulled loose a couple of the tie ropes from the ground.

“We’ll have to repitch the tent, with its back to the wind,” said Jimmie.

We ate our eggs and bacon, with mitts on. The sky dropped right down to earth. The wind moaned and wailed. Snow came so suddenly that we could not even see Blue Hill, a hundred yards behind us…

Just as dark fell, four hours later, Joe Hurtubise looked out his parlor window and saw us coming out of the blizzard.

He had the door open for us to stumble in.

“I knowed,” he said heartily, as he helped us off with the packs, “I knowed you wasn’t THAT nuts!”

Editor’s Notes: One of the readers of this site has the original artwork for this story. You can see it below with the note that it was received on December 20 for issue on February 9th.

  1. Operation Musk Ox was an 81 day operation by the Canadian Military at the time of this article. The goal was to determine how defendable Canada was. More can be found online here as well as video here. ↩︎
  2. Horace Greely was an American newspaper publisher famous for the quote “Go west young man!” ↩︎
  3. John Franklin is a well known explorer whose ships were recently discovered in 2014 and 2016 and are now designated as the Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site. ↩︎

Dog Gone It!

by

On November 9, 2024

In Greg-Jim Story

Bracing my feet, I swung my elbow hard and deep into the large man’s exposed bay window.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 9, 1946.

“It’s your duty,” declared Jimmie Frise.

“Awfff!” I scoffed.

“Look,” said Jim. “The meeting isn’t five blocks from where we sit here in your home.”

“Aw, Jim,” I pleaded, “what’s got into you? Who wants to go to a public meeting?”

“It’s a meeting,” advanced Jim, “of the Community Betterment League. Are you not interested in the betterment of your community?”

“Awff,” I protested. “Jim, I’ve had a busy day. Here it is a swell night to just sit in front of the grate fire, listening to those apple wood logs crackling. And you want me to go out and sit in a crowded public hall and listen to a lot of windbags…”

“It won’t be crowded,” said Jim gently. “There’ll only be a handful of people out. The whole district feels the way you do, Greg. They’ll all stay home, like you, and snooze in front of their grate fires.”

“Well, what’s the matter with the community?” I demanded indignantly. “Isn’t it one of the best run communities in the world? Are there better public health services than we’ve got? Better schools? Better street cars? Better pavements?”

“There’s been a lot of crime…” ventured Jim.

“Is there a better police force in the world than we’ve got?” I lashed.

“There’s quite a lot of poverty,” mused Jim. “Off the main traffic avenues, down the side streets where guys like you and me never have to go. …there’s quite a bit of hardship, loneliness, neglect, trouble, distress…”

“Aw, we’ve got the most enlightened social services in the country,” I asserted. “Jim, leave the community alone. Leave the community in the competent hands that so far have given us so little to complain of.”

“Complain of?” murmured Jim. “Then why do you suppose the Community Betterment League has called a meeting tonight in this district? Why have they hired a hall and organized a program of special speakers?”

“My boy,” I explained, “there are some people in this world whose hobby is playing with public meetings the same as some people have a hobby of fishing or collecting old books or doing work with fret saws.”

“You’re,” suddenly sizzled Jimmie, “no citizen!”

“I,” I retorted aghast, “I… look here, Jim! I’ve been in two wars. I’ve always paid my taxes… maybe a little late… I… uh…!”

Jim just leaned back and watched me be astonished.

“A citizen,” he said quietly after a moment, “should take an interest in the affairs of his city. Or his town. Or his township. To be a citizen, it is not enough to be a successful business man. It isn’t enough to be a hard-working man, who obeys all the laws, pays his taxes, keeps his premises clean.”

“What more… ?” I tried to interrupt indignantly.

Not to Be Bandied About

“To be a good citizen,” went on Jim calmly, it isn’t enough to be a successful man. In the newspapers, it says, ‘Prominent Citizen Dies,’ but when you examine the facts, you find that some greedy cunning old guy has devoted his entire life and energies to building up a large business, employing hundreds of people, erecting a magnificent factory, but in his whole life, he never attended a political meeting.”

“Well, heh, heh,” I scoffed. “I should hope not! Imagine a successful business man going and sitting at the ordinary political meeting, with a lot of local wind-bags seizing the opportunity to sound off. Why, a business man would risk his health attending one of those stupid meetings. He might get so angry, sitting listening to all the drivel, that he’d have a heart attack. Maybe a thrombosis….”

“Okay,” said Jim. “Then don’t let him aspire to the title of citizen. Don’t let him imagine he is a citizen. He’s nothing more or less than a prominent business man. And in the newspapers, it should merely say, ‘Prominent Business Man Dies.’ This word citizen is too noble a title to be bandied about.”

“I suppose,” I sneered, “that, you would call those wind-bags who DO take the floor at public meetings, you’d call them citizens, would you?”

“Most certainly,” said Jim. “The least of them, the poorest of them, is a better citizen than the clever, wealthy, successful man who ignores his duty to take his common share of public affairs.”

“Now, look here, Mr. Frise,” I declared, “who do you suppose runs this country? Who do you suppose takes a REAL interest in the public affairs of the country? Is it those insignificant wind-bags you hear spouting at public meetings? Or is it the men of affairs, the men of substance, the business men, yes, the PROMINENT business men, who, behind the scenes, and at caucuses and private meetings, GET THE REAL JOB DONE!”

“Do you insinuate,” asked Jim coolly, “that this country is not run according to democratic principles? Do you suggest that we are not controlled by representative government?”

“Aw, Jim,” I pleaded, “you don’t for one minute suppose that our big, wealthy citizens just sit back and let the country be run by the kind of people who attend public meetings? My dear man, the real government of the country is in the hands of the men smart enough, wealthy enough to get their way in politics the same as they get their way in their own factories or businesses.”

“They get together,” supposed Jim, “in private board rooms? They don’t HAVE to attend public meetings?”

“Exactly,” I pointed out.

“Then,” said Jim smoothly, “you are content to leave the world in the hands of the powerful few? The same powerful few who lately put the whole world, and all its humble, teeming millions, through the most savage torture in all recorded history? You are content…”

“Hold on,” I protested. “We went to war as a whole people. We weren’t driven into it. It was by overwhelming public consent that we decided we couldn’t come under the dominion of Hitler…”

“And I suppose,” posed Jim, “that it was by overwhelming popular consent that we allowed Hitler to rise to power? Those few, those crafty few, that band of brothers whom we left to run our world for us, weren’t responsible for the rise of Hitler, eh?”

“We had nothing to do with that,” I stated flatly. “The thing just grew. It grew without us noticing it. We were busy with our own private affairs, all through 1939, 1936, 1938…”

“Yeah, and leaving the world to our betters, to the gentlemen in the board rooms,” struck Jimmie. “Do you remember 1938? Do you not recollect there were little meetings, little ill- attended meeting all over this country, all over every country, trying to rouse us to what was coming? Don’t you remember that?”

“I… uh,” I argued.

“No, you don’t remember,” accused Jim. “Because you were too busy sitting at home before the grate fire, listening to the apple wood logs crackling.”

“I… uh,” I pointed out.

“It won’t do,” cried Jimmie, suddenly standing up. “The world right now is in too perilous a state for anybody to stay at home.”

“But what has a meeting of the Community Betterment League,” I groaned, “got to do with the state of the world?”

“Maybe very little,” agreed Jim, “but it’s a public meeting. And by golly, we’re going! In fact, we’re going to ALL public meetings from now on.”

I just sat there. Imagine going to ALL public meetings!

A Lesson Learned

“If the past 20 years has taught us, the common people of the world, one lesson,” went on Jim loudly, “it is that we can’t trust the world in the hands of self-appointed leaders. We’ve got self-appointed leaders in this country just the way Germany had with Hitler. Rich guys, ambitious guys, smooth, get-together guys! Maybe they don’t use gangster organizations on us – yet! But unless we’re a lot more stupid than I think, unless we are really as stupid as these self-appointed guys think, we’re going to protect ourselves from them, we’re going to start taking an interest in our own LIVES…

“Aw, Jim,” I sighed, “there’s a lethargy in the common man.”

“Not lethargy,” corrected Jim. “Inertia. That’s different. A lot different. With inertia, all you’ve got to do is start it moving!”

“Inertia,” I pondered. “I don’t know, Jim. If you put together all the reasons people don’t go out to public meetings, they’d add up to something more than mere inertia. They don’t want the even tenor of their ways upset. They want to go to the movie. They want to sit at home. They want to go out and call on friends. Or they want to have friends in. All the reasons are little reasons. But they add up.”

“Yeh, they add up,” said Jimmie. “We are like on a ship. We’ve all retired to the comfort of our cabins. The ship plunges through the night. We are at the mercy of the captain and the crew.”

“Okay,” I submitted, “but at least, on a ship, the captain and the crew are selected and appointed according to laws and rules so strict and severe that there is little chance of them running us on the rocks. We don’t let the guy who just WANTS to be captain run the ship.”

“Aw,” smiled Jim, “then you will come to the meeting?”

“I’ll,” I said grudgingly, “come to the meeting.”

And we put on our coats and hats, it being just a little before 8 p.m., to walk the five blocks over to the public hall where the meeting was being held.

It was a fine, crisp night. And we enjoyed the walk. About three blocks down, we noticed that Rusty, Jim’s so-called Irish water spaniel, was with us. It isn’t Irish, and it hates water. But it loves masculine company, especially at night, in the open air, when something seems afoot.

“Hey, go on home, you,” I commanded.

“Aw, he can sit outside the hall,” objected Jim. “He’ll be all right.”

“Dogs aren’t invited to public meetings, Jim,” I protested.

“He’ll go back home when we go in the hall,” assured Jim.

And at the corner, just as Rusty rounded a hedge, there was a sudden scuffle, and a large Nazi dog, a large totalitarian, Fascist dog that had apparently been lying in wait behind the hedge, pounced out on Rusty and you never heard such a riot on a quiet residential street.

The dog’s owner came around the corner – he may have been on his way to the meeting too, for all I know – and taking a hasty glance to see whether his dog was on top or underneath, shouted out, “Hey, Bonzo, not so rough!”

He was a big, burly guy, like his dog.

But Jim and I were both running full tilt, for Rusty was decidedly the under dog.

“Rough!” I yelled, as I took a flying kick at the strange mutt. “That hyena?”

I always believe in kicking a dog fight apart. A good swift kick does less harm than another 10 seconds of fighting, I always say.

But I missed. Jim made a grab into the scuffle, and I whirled to come in for another dandy on the ribs of the top dog when the stranger got me by the coat collar and said, in a calm, authoritative voice, “Now, now, my little whiffet….”

I detest the word whiffet. I don’t mind half pint, shorty, or even squirt. But whiffet…!

I lunged.

The big fellow gave me a hearty shake, chuckling very reasonably.

Rules Suspended

Meantime the dog fight was going on with increased fury. Rusty had got in a little nip or two on the top dog’s more delicate anatomy, and its yowls, intermixed with its snarls, and Rusty’s protests of murder, were certainly creating a warlike mood.

Now, when a man much larger than you so far forgets the Marquis of Queensberry rules as to manhandle a smaller man, is the smaller man still bound by the Marquis of Queensberry rules?

I don’t know. I personally think not.

Should I have permitted myself to be held suspended there in space while a dog fight went on, and my friend’s dog, Rusty, was being savagely murdered?

I think not.

So, bracing my feet, I swung my elbow hard and deep into the large man’s exposed bay window. I felt my elbow sink a good foot.

The big fellow, with an astounding intake of breath, let limply go of me and fell smothering to the ground.

At which his dog let go of Rusty and ran yelping up the street into the night.

And out came a number of neighbors from several directions, in their shirt sleeves, to witness Jimmie and me attempting to erect the large stranger off the pavement.

“Who hit him?” demanded the first comers.

“He did,” said Jim briefly, indicating me at the head end of the gentleman still fighting for his wind.

From mouth to mouth the wonder flew, as they all got the large man up on his feet, and all eyes were on me.

“He… uh,” said Jim, to the assembled neighbors, “it was hardly…”

I think he was going to tell them just what I had done to the stranger.

Two of the neighbors led the large man unsteadily up the street.

“Best thing has happened around here for years,” whispered one of the gathering, delightedly pumping my hand. “He and his dog. They go out every night for a walk, looking for a dog fight….”

And everybody pumped my hand. My foul hand. They should have shaken my elbow.

I brushed away from them.

“Jim,” I said, “I’m winded, too upset to go to any meeting.”

“Same here,” said Jim shortly, whistling for Rusty.

And we walked home in silence.

“That was an awful jab you gave that poor guy,” said Jim, at last unable to keep to himself. “You might have burst his appendix.”

“I felt something burst,” I said, not without satisfaction.

“Are you proud of it?” demanded Jim grimly.

“Weeelll…” I said comfortably.

“Gosh,” ruminated Jim bitterly, “there we were, heading for a meeting of the Community Betterment League…..”

“It’s the way I told you, Jim,” I assured, taking his elbow and leading up my sidewalk toward my house and the grate fire of apple wood logs, “something absurd is always preventing a man from attending his public duty. A dog fight… or something.”

Buck Fever!

by

On October 22, 2024

In Birdseye Center, Comic

October 19, 1946

Shoot the Roll!

by

On August 6, 2024

In Birdseye Center, Comic

August 10, 1946

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